They're throwing money away. Actually, I would be glad if this money was entirely used for research, because Intel and other US companies badly need it. But they will waste it on plants that are already outdated in the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is Intel giving this money to investors directly or indirectly in the form of stock buy backs. And nothing of this would be necessary if Intel had invested their profits in research, instead of sending money to investors to keep the stock price high and, consequently, their executive compensation.
What do you mean by outdated? Companies are already designing chips for their 1.8nm process, in addition to Intel's mid-late 2025 chips switched back to Intel fabs, for 6 months from now. TSMC is still working on their 2nm process.
The only players in that market are Samsung, TSMC, and Intel. It'd be crazy to let one of the three global EUV lithography manufacturers disappear because their R&D costs have lowered net revenue temporarily.
People act like Intel has nothing to offer, when they're one of a low single-digits number of companies who are even capable of making modern microchips. Even China won't likely crack EUV for the next 5 years. Throwing all of the money on pure R&D would be madness. And the chips act is investing in a major R&D facility in upstate NY for next gen stuff anyway.
Scrapping their last gen process to focus on 1.8nm was a long term play, and all signs point out to it working out well.
Not to mention, it'll be nice to have at least this one US company making modern microchips, in case the many fabless US microchip companies ever need to switch to domestic production, due to economic or geopolitical reasons that are clearly on the short term horizon.
Intel had to agree not to buy back stock for 5 years when they accepted this money. They went from 50 to a low of around 20 during a huge bull run in semis too so whatever they are guilty of I don’t think they can be accused of “keeping the stock price high”. I believe they have smart people doing research but extremely poor incentives and siloing so no engineers can make any headway. I don’t think Gelsinger has gone hard enough in correcting this so maybe fresh leadership would help.
So whatever their problems are, throwing more money at R&D is unlikely to solve them.
Also, Intel has committed to not doing stock buybacks and has stopped the dividends completely. They may resume at some point, but it's unlikely to be soon.
Intel doesn't have a problem with R&D at the moment. At least in terms of direction they are doing great. ( May be not GPU but that is another story ) And as others have said they cant buy back stock with this money grant.
They need the money if they want to do foundry business competing against TSMC. And I would argue even $8B is too little. Latest Leading edge Giga Foundry in Taiwan is roughly $20B. You will probably need at least $30B in US.
Very unfortunate Intel is still hanging on to its GPU unit which is burning money. I guess part of the AI hype meant Pat Gelsinger cant let that part go.
Much like with Boeing, they are out of options. the US has no other chipmaker but Intel. China has about half a dozen.
the 8bn is more of a pointy stick at this stage to try and get your 56 year old failing chipmaker to do something besides profiteering (buybacks layoffs and mergers.) Its a wasted effort. short of nationalizing Intel, the US is going to lose a crown jewel of its technological advantage solely due to mismanagement.
That's actually pretty cool. Chip companies can't complain that Chinese companies are ramping up faster just because of their subsidies anymore. This should level the playing field, hopefully?
The x86 companies (and/intel) do better with competition.
I’ve had my last laptops (work/home) with amd and it’s much better battery life and performance then my (9th? Gen) intel notebook with nvidia (the battery life was Terrible but it could game). I think Apple puts a lot of pressure on too, which helps.
I guess intels “ultra” notebook parts are better.
There is some x86 advisory group now to keep the instruction set in sync between the 2 companies. Linux is involved and is Linus so it should be at least a little fun.
I ended up with a 3090FE card, decided to build the first tower I’ve built in years. Opted for and 7800x3d, didn’t realize what a dope chip it was. It was just a better price point than intel - I think 2022 or 2023
People are comparing intel vs AMD here, but in this context -- AMD doesn't actually make the chips do they? They've designed the chips and other companies such as TSMC make the chips.
A chip plant / "fab" is the thing that makes the chips, and the point of the chips act is to bring some of that manufacturing back to north america in case we end up in or watching a big fat war in asia that may impact TSMC or samsung's capacity to make chips.
Efficient is a synonym of "brittle" and some important things are better if they're inefficient and robust.
I’m a fairly traditional libertarian but I’ve softened a bit on my definition of “essential industries”. If other countries make essential goods we need, and they become hostile to us or get conquered politically by those hostile to us, in a war we would be in a lot of trouble. We saw a bit of this during COVID when we couldn’t even make basic products.
No matter the subsidies they will still lose if their products suck. But we need some minimum ability to build things here if it all goes to hell.
Wonder what the economic benefit of giving away 20K median priced homes would be for the economy versus giving Intel's stockholders an incentive to build the bare minimum in the US.
Probably goes in the same category as other defense spending. Short term plan is to defend Taiwan and hope nothing goes down. Long term is to ensure that we won’t have to in the future.
X86 throws away half its computing power on antivirus bloatware. And what other performance is left is hidden behind opaque instruction caching and look ahead. If they had actually given the end user access to speed, they might have chased speed themselves. As it was, the end user gave up on getting performance out of x86.
I'm just happy as part of this deal they must keep their fab. I believe Intel will be in a good position in the future, we will have a need for a domestic fab! And they are perhaps now going to rock the graphics card scene with their launch of Battlemage gpus!
Sometimes I think they should have just offered this money as startup capital to new ventures. What's the advantage of Intel here versus just going with Intel engineers?
Yes, they're complaining about the obvious result of a monopolized market. If these companies were around, we would certainly have options and Intel could die quickly and without problem. Now we need to throw new money at a bad investment (Intel will continue to be a bad company unless they replace the whole management and change their culture).
But really most CPUs are risc cores with a hardware instruction set decoder. Considering how fast Apple and others designed arm chips for the mobile market, and there isn't that much difference between a mall mobile CPU for a smartphone and a full scale desktop CPU, I would think the barrier entry to x86 isn't that high if the US swept away any patent lawsuits.
But maybe we should just push the transition to arm now from x86. We are remarkably close to this already between AWS arm instances, mobiles, and Apple laptops.
With the embarrassment of riches and silicon, It wouldn't shock me if mixed arm and x86 execution cores we're packaged together.
Intel is the only hope for relatively short-term microprocessor fabrication on the continent.
TSMC is trying to do fabs here but that's going to take ages to scale.
The real question is, how do you subsidize this sort of development from scratch while not hamstringing or ignoring already developed abilities. For promoting advanced chip fab inside of the US, intel is america's best bet.
The only other option would have been AMD, but they closed their on-shore fabs like two decades ago afaicr.
> As of Sep 28th, 2024, we were authorized to repurchase up to $110.0 billion, of which $7.24 billion remain available. We have repurchased 5.77 billion shares at a cost of $152.05 billion since the program began in 1990.
No, it's really not a reward. The government is doing this because they believe it's in the best interests of the country. It's not because of any opinion they have about whether Intel is a good or bad company.
The goal here isn't to make companies more virtuous. It is to change the landscape of an industry in a way that will protect the United States.
Why would this random deal of all things tip any scale for Trump? He's not some unknown quantity that's opposed to this kind of thing, he had tons of similar efforts, many of which crashed and burned.. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/foxconn-plant...
Yeah, lack of money is rarely the problem for these behemoths, it’s lack of will or motivation.
To that end, I wish the government just said, we’ve deemed you a provider of essential goods, find a way to get your company to invest onshore, or we will find a way to get your company to invest onshore, your choice.
I know, I know, slippery slope, but it’d be great if we could do this instead of giving them taxpayer money in this way - in the long, long term it’s good for the country, but in the short term it’s good for their stock.
the US wants to stratigically diversify away from TSMC, in case a war does start.
Not to mention that having more competition in the fabrication industry can't hurt.
The only question is whether taxpayers will get the value and benefit from this investment. I would hope so, but i can't tell from the past whether such an investment have netted benefit overall.
A worse case of meddling is the oil industry. They have been considered strategically important and gotten mind-blowingly expensive special treatment for a long time. That's one example among many.
[+] [-] coliveira|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] spoaceman7777|1 year ago|reply
The only players in that market are Samsung, TSMC, and Intel. It'd be crazy to let one of the three global EUV lithography manufacturers disappear because their R&D costs have lowered net revenue temporarily.
People act like Intel has nothing to offer, when they're one of a low single-digits number of companies who are even capable of making modern microchips. Even China won't likely crack EUV for the next 5 years. Throwing all of the money on pure R&D would be madness. And the chips act is investing in a major R&D facility in upstate NY for next gen stuff anyway.
Scrapping their last gen process to focus on 1.8nm was a long term play, and all signs point out to it working out well.
Not to mention, it'll be nice to have at least this one US company making modern microchips, in case the many fabless US microchip companies ever need to switch to domestic production, due to economic or geopolitical reasons that are clearly on the short term horizon.
[+] [-] porknubbins|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] branko_d|1 year ago|reply
https://www.intc.com/financial-info/income-statement
So whatever their problems are, throwing more money at R&D is unlikely to solve them.
Also, Intel has committed to not doing stock buybacks and has stopped the dividends completely. They may resume at some point, but it's unlikely to be soon.
[+] [-] ksec|1 year ago|reply
They need the money if they want to do foundry business competing against TSMC. And I would argue even $8B is too little. Latest Leading edge Giga Foundry in Taiwan is roughly $20B. You will probably need at least $30B in US.
Very unfortunate Intel is still hanging on to its GPU unit which is burning money. I guess part of the AI hype meant Pat Gelsinger cant let that part go.
[+] [-] tbrownaw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nimbius|1 year ago|reply
the 8bn is more of a pointy stick at this stage to try and get your 56 year old failing chipmaker to do something besides profiteering (buybacks layoffs and mergers.) Its a wasted effort. short of nationalizing Intel, the US is going to lose a crown jewel of its technological advantage solely due to mismanagement.
[+] [-] wmf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] high_na_euv|1 year ago|reply
They say they are on track to delivery 18A - leading node in next 7 months
[+] [-] interludead|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Yeul|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tokioyoyo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jmspring|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] interludead|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] acomjean|1 year ago|reply
I’ve had my last laptops (work/home) with amd and it’s much better battery life and performance then my (9th? Gen) intel notebook with nvidia (the battery life was Terrible but it could game). I think Apple puts a lot of pressure on too, which helps.
I guess intels “ultra” notebook parts are better.
There is some x86 advisory group now to keep the instruction set in sync between the 2 companies. Linux is involved and is Linus so it should be at least a little fun.
[+] [-] binkHN|1 year ago|reply
It's well known that an integrated GPU will give you a better battery life compared to a discreet GPU.
[+] [-] jmspring|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] someothherguyy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pokstad|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ks2048|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cduzz|1 year ago|reply
A chip plant / "fab" is the thing that makes the chips, and the point of the chips act is to bring some of that manufacturing back to north america in case we end up in or watching a big fat war in asia that may impact TSMC or samsung's capacity to make chips.
Efficient is a synonym of "brittle" and some important things are better if they're inefficient and robust.
[+] [-] monero-xmr|1 year ago|reply
No matter the subsidies they will still lose if their products suck. But we need some minimum ability to build things here if it all goes to hell.
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] janalsncm|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ulfw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dyauspitr|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] naveen99|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] psyclobe|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anon291|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Sparkyte|1 year ago|reply
- VIA
- IBM
- Cyrix
I mean IBM is around but I doubt they'll touch x86 ever again.
[+] [-] coliveira|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|1 year ago|reply
But really most CPUs are risc cores with a hardware instruction set decoder. Considering how fast Apple and others designed arm chips for the mobile market, and there isn't that much difference between a mall mobile CPU for a smartphone and a full scale desktop CPU, I would think the barrier entry to x86 isn't that high if the US swept away any patent lawsuits.
But maybe we should just push the transition to arm now from x86. We are remarkably close to this already between AWS arm instances, mobiles, and Apple laptops.
With the embarrassment of riches and silicon, It wouldn't shock me if mixed arm and x86 execution cores we're packaged together.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tpetry|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] light_hue_1|1 year ago|reply
Now, we're rewarding them with 7.9B of our taxpayer dollars.
This is just disgusting. I'm a liberal, but how are people surprised that Trump won?
[+] [-] jpalawaga|1 year ago|reply
TSMC is trying to do fabs here but that's going to take ages to scale.
The real question is, how do you subsidize this sort of development from scratch while not hamstringing or ignoring already developed abilities. For promoting advanced chip fab inside of the US, intel is america's best bet.
The only other option would have been AMD, but they closed their on-shore fabs like two decades ago afaicr.
[+] [-] blackoil|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tyre|1 year ago|reply
My god.
[+] [-] adrianmonk|1 year ago|reply
The goal here isn't to make companies more virtuous. It is to change the landscape of an industry in a way that will protect the United States.
[+] [-] mikeyouse|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gxs|1 year ago|reply
To that end, I wish the government just said, we’ve deemed you a provider of essential goods, find a way to get your company to invest onshore, or we will find a way to get your company to invest onshore, your choice.
I know, I know, slippery slope, but it’d be great if we could do this instead of giving them taxpayer money in this way - in the long, long term it’s good for the country, but in the short term it’s good for their stock.
[+] [-] valeg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmaroon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] vachina|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] theoreticalmal|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] chii|1 year ago|reply
Not to mention that having more competition in the fabrication industry can't hurt.
The only question is whether taxpayers will get the value and benefit from this investment. I would hope so, but i can't tell from the past whether such an investment have netted benefit overall.
[+] [-] smolder|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nextworddev|1 year ago|reply